Help the Reunion Committee Plan the “Class-only” Program
The Reunion Committee Co-Chairs (Bill Newman and Derry Allen) are leading an effort to create a compelling program for our upcoming 55th at the end of next May, and they are asking for YOUR help:
“The YAA will arrange for the stars on the current faculty to offer those wonderful lectures that compete for our attention on Friday and Saturday morning,” said Newman. “But we have three or four time slots that are class-only events. Our goal is to present unique, highly relevant subjects, followed by meaty conversations, that will broadly appeal to fellow class members as well as their spouses and significant others.”
Deciding which subjects to address, which speaker(s), what format, how discussions can best be handled, etc. — these planning decisions are critically important. Bill and Derry would like to engage with a broad cross-section of class members to plan these discussions. They would like to access your creativity, ideas, and leads from our classmates to formulate the offerings.
Can you give two hours of “community service” to help define our programs?
“We need your input,” explained Derry. “And we know that open-ended, ill-defined requests for ‘participation’ are wisely avoided by experienced Yalies. Accordingly, we want to be super-specific: We are asking for two hours over the next 3 months, specifically two Zoom white-boarding sessions, each a maximum of one hour long.
“The first Zoom hour is scheduled for Thursday, September 28, at 8:00 PM Eastern. We will send out some pre-call instructions to help you collect your thoughts. The meeting will brainstorm and aggregate LOTS of ideas and discuss the criteria we should use to filter those down to “finalists” worthy of our class-only programs.
“After that first meeting, the Co-Chairs will work with interested classmates to develop the most promising ideas. Some ideas will not be feasible because the speaker (or panel) won’t be available. But other ideas might blossom into something richer, meatier, more attractive. At some point, we’ll call for a second Zoom hour to help us ‘go final’ and choose which events will comprise our class-only program.”
Please click here to indicate that you’d be willing to serve on this ad-hoc committee.
And if you have any suggestions or questions, email “reunion@Yale1969.org” … which goes to Bill and Derry.